John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

have been making up a few leads and it just occured to me that it would be good to know if anyone has any good methods for making sure you're newly made cables are performing properly...

the connections etc are fine (i have a basic cable tester)

but i'm more curious to know how you test the resistance of the cable, with a multimeter...

anyone got any methods they use to make sure their cables are working properly? (apart from listening to it, obviously)

thanks in advance!

Usually I just use a continuity check (beep it out) to make sure a wire isn't shorted w/ any others. On occasion, I've had a bad connector that was shorted in the molding (eg: TT or 1/4" connector).

I install 1000's of connector never once checked for that, never once had a problem, don't waste your time.

thanks for the replies, have just read about people being anal about little thigns like that, just wanted to make sure my soldering hasn't ruind the HF in my mix or something like that

I've had a problem with it at one studio install. There was a bus compressor that, when sent a test tone, the return was .5 db's off. Checked the resistance and the left side had way more than the right. I don't remember how much, but it was pretty considerable. Turns out, pin 2 in the xlr didn't have a great solder job on it. visually, it looked fine, but once we resoldered it, everything was good. I don't know if a cable tester would have cought that because we didn't have a tester that would test battam connectors and we didn't have adapter.

Hi to ALL,

I always solder my all cables by myself, having bad experience with ready - made cables. I am using ONLY MOGAMI cables, based on my personal experience, they are the best, and using NEUTRIK connectors wherever possible. Checking is done first with the multimeter and strong "crocodile" clips at the end of measuring pins, at position <ohm X 1> and after that, if they are analog cables, test with test oscillator (100hz ad 10000hz) and moving and folding cables during tests. My advice is that you should use the best possible soldering iron, (thermo regulated) and soldering wire with at least 3-5% silver in it, and always "degrease" soldering tips with acohol or tetrachloride before soldering. My patchbay is 1/4 inch TRS, (balanced) not "bantam" or TT because I don't believe in quality of such small connectors and patchfields. (Please, excuse me for my bad English spelling & grammar)